Buildings

Eynsham's early buildings are predominantly of local limestone with Stonesfield
slate roofs. (fn. 68) Surviving drawings (fn. 69) and signs
that many central cottages acquired a second
storey in the 19th century suggest that earlier
most smaller houses were single-storeyed with
steep thatched roofs. Only a few thatched cottages survive. Many fires were recorded, including one on Whit Monday 1629 which destroyed
over 100 bays of building and another in 1681
when 20 houses were burnt. (fn. 70) There were serious fires in 1696 (in Newland Street), 1709, and
1854, the last damaging Abbey Farm and houses
in Swan Lane, and reaching as far as Queen
Street. (fn. 71)

The earliest surviving domestic building in
Eynsham is the White Hart inn in Newland
Street, which retains parts of a medieval roof.
The building may be the hall occupied by
Thomas Schermon in 1366, (fn. 72) probably the court
house of Newland. The medieval building occupied the frontage of a large burgage plot, but by
the 17th century the building seems to have
become a minor constituent of a large holding
covering the whole north-west corner of Newland. The holding passed from the Almond
family to the Leggs and in the 1750s was divided, its eastern half, including the later White
Hart, passing afterwards to the Day family. (fn. 73) In
1785 John May bought it and licensed the
Haunch of Venison. Earlier Francis Ladson, a
tenant of the Days, had licensed the Rose and
Crown, probably on that site. (fn. 74) The inn became
the White Hart in 1835 and was the meeting
place of Newland courts into the 20th century. (fn. 75)
For a time in the 19th century the eastern end
was used as a grocer's shop. (fn. 76) The original house
extends into the property on the east. Its centre
is marked by a raised cruck roof of two large
bays, soot-encrusted and evidently designed to
be seen above an open hall. To the east the roof
continues for one short bay over what was
probably a service end. At the south end of the
presumed screens passage is a respond of chamfered ashlar with a finely carved medieval stop
and in the bedroom above is the wide carved oak
head of the medieval entrance; a jamb with roll
moulding may be traced in the outside wall. The
west, or solar, end was presumably medieval in
origin, but its roof is contemporary with a later
reconstruction of the hall roof. The hall was
divided into two rooms and a first floor inserted,
probably in the 17th century; then or earlier a
fireplace was built against the rear wall of the
central bay. In the 18th century a rear wing was
added, and later extended by a large clubroom,
probably in 1828 when the adjacent stable block
was built by the publican, John Weller. (fn. 77)

On the site of the Co-operative stores was a
building once known as the old manor house,
rebuilt in 1954. (fn. 78) In the 19th century its owners
still received from the lords of the manor a rent
charge of 5s., which in 1535 the abbey paid to
Thomas Blackman and was later paid to his
heirs. (fn. 79) The Blackmans were prominent in Eynsham from the later Middle Ages until c. 1600,
frequently acting as manorial officials; in 1574
the family claimed arms. (fn. 80) The building, aligned
with Mill Street and Abbey Street, was evidently an encroachment on the original square,
and the residual payment and the tradition of
manorial status suggest that it may have been
the court house of the medieval manor. The
Blackmans' successors by the mid 17th century
were the Greens, and by then the building was
the Green Dragon; (fn. 81) it ceased to be an inn in the
late 18th century and later included a shop and a
bank. When demolished in 1954 it comprised an
L-shaped building of rubble and stone slate,
incorporating fragments of abbey masonry. The
earlier wing, on Lombard Street, contained a
central chimney and fireplaces of the 16th century or earlier and part of the block was timberframed and jettied, with a moulded wooden oriel
of four lights with mullions and transoms. The
east-west wing was refronted in the 18th century.

In the 16th and 17th centuries Eynsham was
dominated by a few wealthier men whose
houses, mostly rebuilt in that period, are among
the most substantial buildings in the village.
The leading taxpayers were farmers, occupying
Abbey Farm, Twelve Acre Farm, and the Elms
(all treated below), (fn. 82) and the Gables, the Shrubbery, and one or two other central farmhouses.
The Gables, on the corner of Newland Street
and Queen Street, is a timber-framed house of
possibly late medieval origin, on a site which in
1366 was the largest plot in Newland borough
but seems to have been vacant. (fn. 83) In 1650 the
house belonged to John Green, gentleman,
whose father John (d. 1615) was a tanner who
had come to Eynsham from Tamworth (Staffs.);
in much of their property the Greens succeeded
the Blackmans, (fn. 84) who may have built the
Gables. By the 17th century the site was divided
into three parts, the house, the adjacent Porter's
close, and a malthouse, which was sometimes
held separately. The house and close passed
from the Greens through coheirs to Anthony
Saywell in 1673, to the Wises in 1703, to the
Colliers in 1761, and in 1819-20 to James
Swann of Eynsham mill, papermaker, whose
family held the whole property until the 1890s. (fn. 85)

The house has a long timber-framed front
with four large gables, and tall, diagonally set,
brick chimneystacks. The southern gable is of a
possibly late medieval cross wing, against which
stands a long 17th-century central range, terminating in a northern cross wing which contained
the kitchen. The main entrance is probably of
the 16th century; a 17th-century staircase at the
south end of the main range rises to the attics
and another stair was inserted at the north end
in the 18th century. A 19th-century corridor on
the west side incorporates 17th-century timberframed windows, probably removed from the
earlier west wall. Sash windows were inserted on
the east front in the 19th century, and the house
was much restored in the early 20th century. (fn. 86)
The wide two-storeyed stone malthouse and
associated cottages have distinctive low-pitched
roofs designed for a covering of tarred paper, of
which fragments survive. The Swanns were
leading proponents of paper roofs in the early
19th century, (fn. 87) and the buildings probably date
from 1820 when John Pimm was working for
James Swann at 'the late Collier house', which
included a 'new building at the malthouse'. (fn. 88) By
tradition an ancient acacia in the garden was
planted by the author William Cobbett, though
at the time of his recorded dealings with the
Swanns they lived at the mill, not moving to the
Gables until at least the late 1820s. (fn. 89)

The Shrubbery on High Street was probably
rebuilt in the later 16th century by another
leading Eynsham family, the Martins. (fn. 90) By 1650
the house and associated estate were held by
Thomas King, a sequestrated clergyman, whose
interest derived from his wife Dorothy, formerly
Martin. King died in 1681 and from Dorothy's
son Michael Martin the house passed to Michael's children, Richard, and later Christopher,
Knight or Martin (d. 1702). (fn. 91) It was acquired by
the Knapps, who sold it in the 1740s to Edward
Ryves, a Woodstock lawyer whose large Eynsham estate passed to the Holloways. In the later
18th century the house seems to have been let as
a working farmhouse, but Edward Vere Holloway, who acquired it in 1812, lived there. (fn. 92)
From the later 19th century it was occupied by
one of the town's doctors. (fn. 93) The walls incorporate much re-used ashlar, presumably from the
adjacent abbey site, suggesting a date no earlier
than the mid 16th century. The cross passage
retains its original entrance doors and on the
north there is a slightly later two-storeyed
porch. Wings projecting northwards from each
end of the main range were built later, perhaps
in the early 17th century, (fn. 94) but that on the west
was rebuilt or remodelled c. 1900 and further
extended eastwards c. 1950.

Another substantial 17th-century house
forms the core of the later Newland House, the
site of the 'ancient holding' around which Newland borough was laid out in the 13th century. (fn. 95)
In the 17th century and later the site was
freehold, (fn. 96) surrounded by Newland copyholds.
Its owner in 1650 was Mrs. Brown, presumably
relict of Thomas Brown, one of the four Eynsham taxpayers in 1642 described as 'gentleman'. (fn. 97) In 1708 another Thomas Brown sold the
house to George Knapp, whose family retained
it until 1771. It was acquired in 1787 by Joseph
Druce, who sold it before inclosure to an Oxford
family, the Atwoods, who held it until 1847; in
the early 19th century it was a girl's boarding
school. (fn. 98) From 1858 until the 1890s the house
was owned and occupied by the Shillingfords,
woolstaplers. (fn. 99) The 17th-century house evidently comprised a central block with cross
wings, set well back from the road on a large site
whose skewed boundaries dictated the
alignment of the wings. In the early 18th century the interior was altered, notably by the
addition of a fine staircase which rises to the
attics; later in the century a new kitchen was
built behind the central range and the front was
refaced. By the early 19th century it was already
a large house with a long frontage, extensive
gardens, and outbuildings. (fn. 1) It was greatly enlarged, probably by the Shillingfords, by building behind the cross wings and gutting the west
wing to create a large drawing room with bay
window, matched by another bay on the east of
the front. In the 20th century the rear garden
was sold for building.

Figure 10:

Eynsham

Eynsham c. 1910. Scale 1:4,000 (approx. 16 in to 1 mile)

A house (now Abbey Stones) at the corner of
Abbey Street and Swan Street bears the date
1561 and the initials TP. The datestone, probably re-used, was in its present position by the
early 19th century, before the house was raised
and refronted. (fn. 2) The house and associated malthouse (later Malthouse Cottage) was for long the
centre of a substantial farm, belonging to the
Egletons (1650), the Castells (1762), and from
the later 18th century the Druces. (fn. 3) Its site
stretched to Station Road until 1847, when
Samuel Druce, by then living at Home Farm,
gave land for the National school; in 1858 the
house was occupied by the prominent Baptist
minister, Henry Matthew. (fn. 4)

Several other smaller houses and cottages,
though much restored, date from the late 16th or
early 17th century, notably the Jolly Sportsman
and Swan inns mentioned above. A group of
substantial early farmhouses lined Mill Street.
Home Farm, one of many Druce family acquisitions in the 19th century, (fn. 5) is a good example of
the 17th-century regional style of rubble and
slate building with gabled roofs; Samuel Druce
(d. 1860) was living there by 1841. (fn. 6) Middle
Farm, adjacent on the north, belonged to the
Castells from the mid 17th century or earlier
and was occupied in the 19th century by the
Arnatts; (fn. 7) the 17th-century rubble and thatch
farmhouse and an 18th-century barn were demolished in recent times. Old Wintles Farm at
the junction of Mill Street and Newland Street
was probably the large 'new' house occupied by
Joan Hampshire at her death in 1618, though
she also held another farmhouse, now long demolished, in Acre End Street. (fn. 8) The Hampshires' estate passed to the Jordans, and in 1748
the 'newly built house' and the farm were
bought by the lawyer Edward Ryves and so
descended to the Holloways. The Wintle family owned and let the farm from 1845 until
1920. (fn. 9) The house, after the rebuilding of the
early 18th century, is a large rubble and stone
slate building of two storeys, with five wood
mullioned and transomed windows and an original door. Redthorn House, of similar date and
style on the opposite corner of Newland Street,
was a working farmhouse until the 19th century.
In the mid 18th century it belonged to the
Devalls (fn. 10) but later passed to the manorial lords
and in 1801 was sold, as Blagrove's Farm, to W.
E. Taunton, who soon afterwards sold to the
Swanns. (fn. 11) In the mid 19th century it was let as a
working farm but was later a private house, in
the early 20th century housing a school run by
Miss H. G. Swann. (fn. 12) The building, of rubble
and stone slate with a hipped roof and two
ranges of six windows, probably dates from the
early 18th century.

Notable 18th-century buildings were the Bartholomew Room and the vicarage house. (fn. 13) The
Grange in Acre End Street, the earliest brick
house in Eynsham, was built as a long range,
comprising a house, malthouse, and granary,
later acquiring at the rear a corn mill. In the
19th century the west end of the range was
altered and raised. The small size of the earlier
bricks, and the elaborately moulded cornice,
suggest an early 18th-century date. The house
seems to have set a style, using plat bands and
Flemish bond with all headers black, which was
used in the village for over a century. The
Grange may have been built by Thomas Loder,
an Oxford brewer, who in 1737 acquired what in
1650 had been two tenements (Blackman's and
Coleman's copies) and were merged in the early
18th century by the Quartermain family. By
1760 the house and malthouse belonged to Dr.
Nourse of Oxford, and passed later to Thomas
Adkins (d. 1796), a wealthy maltster. (fn. 14) For
much of the 19th century the property was
owned by the Sheldons, corn dealers, maltsters,
and millers. (fn. 15)

Murray House (formerly the Laurels), immediately to the east, is an 18th-century house of
coursed rubble and stone slate, with original
doors, staircase, and panelling. The property
was bought in the 1770s by Edward Minn (d.
1788), a wealthy landowner, who may have
rebuilt it since shortly afterwards he was seeking
a pew in the church to go with his 'handsome
house'. (fn. 16) It belonged to the Minns until at least
the 1830s, (fn. 17) and in 1841 was occupied by James
Hinton, the prominent Baptist and Irvingite. (fn. 18)
Myrtle House in Mill Street has a mid 18th century front of three bays and three storeys
with 'pattern book' architraves and doorcase; reused 17th-century doors survive in the attics.
The house belonged to a branch of the Wastie
family from the 18th century until modern
times: William Wastie acquired a house on part
of the site in the 1740s, but Myrtle House in its
present form probably dates from after 1767
when the Wasties acquired the main part of the
site. (fn. 19) Llandaff, on the north side of the Square,
held as a farmhouse by the Arnatts in the 18th
and 19th centuries, (fn. 20) dates from 1732; a circular
window and crenellated bays were added in the
early 20th century. (fn. 21) Its name recalls Francis
Matthew, last earl of Llandaff, apparently related to Henry Matthew, Eynsham's 19thcentury Baptist minister. (fn. 22)

In 1792 Eynsham was said to exhibit 'little
more than wretched cottages', but a few decades
later it was described as 'extensive and cheerful'. (fn. 23) There was increased building activity in
the early 19th century, chiefly in response to
rising population, partly as a result of some
reorganization of farms at inclosure. Blankstones Farm in Acre End Street, for instance,
bears the date 1802 and the initials of James
Preston (d. 1805), a major farmer in the parish,
whose family continued there for much of the
19th century. (fn. 24) Many cottages were built,
chiefly in local brick. (fn. 25) A typical early row, using
black and red bricks for the facade and stone
rubble at the rear, was Trap Alley at the south
end of Queen Street, built by Richard Bowerman in 1817 and until the 1930s extending
further north. (fn. 26) Another brick group, on the
west side of Mill Street, was built in 1833 by
Jonathan Arnatt, whose initials it bears. Other
early 19th-century additions include a row of
small cottages on the east side of Queen Street,
Lord's Row on the Oxford road, cottages in Pug
Lane west of the Queen's Head, a brick pair in
Mill Street south of the vicarage house, and a
stone row built by Peter Wastie north of his
house, Myrtle House. (fn. 27) Some early cottage
building was of very poor quality, creating insanitary yards such as Curtis's in Acre End
Street, where seven cottages were cramped on a
small plot around a single well; they were demolished in 1896 to create space for Merton
Farm. (fn. 28)

Cottage rows of the mid 19th century include
Columbia Terrace in High Street, Crown Crescent in Acre End Street (owned by the adjacent
Crown brewery of the 1850s, but not occupied
principally by brewery workers), (fn. 29) Chapel Yard
off Newland Street, built c. 1860 by the Arnatts
on the site of a former brewery, (fn. 30) and further
east a brick row built by the Druces c. 1870. (fn. 31) A
row built for wealthier villagers was Wytham
Terrace, a group of three-storeyed brick houses
of the 1860s on the south side of Acre End
Street.

During the 19th century several older farmhouses in Eynsham were rebuilt or enlarged,
notably Abbey Farm and the Arnatts' chief
farmhouse, no. 5 Thames Street, which they
had owned since the early 18th century and was
known in the later 19th as Ache Hill or Home
Farm. (fn. 32) Some farmhouses emerged in the 19th
century as gentry residences, notably Newland
Lodge (later Chesneys) in Newland Street,
which seems to have been separated from its
agricultural lands in the early 19th century. It
was on the site of a large copyhold (c. 1 ½ a.), held
in 1650 by John Woodley, a London haberdasher, and in the early 18th century by the
Knapps. In 1755 it was sold to Edward Ryves,
and passed to his heirs the Holloways. (fn. 33) The
plot was divided in the early 19th century and
the house and the eastern part were bought in
1821 by Samuel Druce (d. 1860), whose family
retained it throughout the century. In the earlier
19th century the house was let as a boys' boarding school. (fn. 34) Before 1876, (fn. 35) perhaps in 1862, the
date on a surviving weather vane, a large new
house was built north-east of the old buildings,
perhaps for Samuel Druce's son-in-law, Edward
Welchman, a retired chemist, tenant of Newland
Lodge in the 1870s. (fn. 36) A Roman Catholic mission met there in the 1890s. (fn. 37) After a fire the
house was rebuilt in 1898 and renamed Chesneys by Conrad Marshall Schmidt, a London
art decorator, whose initials are over the main
doorway: (fn. 38) the interior, perhaps to Schmidt's
design, includes ornate ribbed ceilings and panelling, and some plaster decoration in 18thcentury style.

The Hythe Croft (earlier the Lodge or Highcroft Lodge), on the site of a former tannery
established by the Day family in the early 18th
century, was sold in 1832 by Robert Day to
Samuel Druce, whose family retained it until
1897. (fn. 39) In the early 19th century a house was
built on the site of a cottage there, and after 1832
the associated farmyard was sold and many of
the former tannery buildings demolished. (fn. 40) The
Druces for long sublet the property, notably to
William Shillingford in the 1840s and 1850s, but
they lived there in the later 19th century. (fn. 41) In
1907 an extension was built to the designs of
Clough Williams Ellis. (fn. 42)

Perhaps because of improved communications with Oxford in the 19th century Eynsham
began to attract a few wealthier newcomers who
built substantial houses. Acre End House, for
example, was probably rebuilt in the early 19th
century by the Pinfolds, an Oxford family. (fn. 43)
Willow Bank, a large brick house on the eastern
edge of the town, was built in the 1830s for
Matthew Hastings, land agent and surveyor. (fn. 44)
Some 19th-century rebuilding, notably of Mansard House in Acre End Street (fn. 45) and of the Holt
in Mill Street, with its imposing late-Victorian
Gothic front, made no concessions to the essentially rural setting. On the north-western edge of
the built-up area Inglemere (renamed Fruitlands when it became a market garden) was
added in the earlier 20th century. (fn. 46)

Institutional buildings of the 19th century
included the Baptist chapel of 1818, the National school of 1847 (later a private house) in
Station Road, the Board school of 1878 (later the
Bartholomew School), the Wesleyan chapel of
1884 (later the parish room) in Thames Street,
and the late 19th-century Catholic Apostolic
church in Mill Street. (fn. 47) New commercial premises, besides the inns mentioned above, included
the Crown brewery in Acre End Street, Gibbons brewery north of High Street, and a mineral water factory off Mill Street (all demolished), (fn. 48) the tall, red-brick Pimms' stores in the
Square, added to the shop opened by the family
in the 1880s, (fn. 49) and the large house and associated wine and grocery shop of the Gibbons
family in Lombard Street (later the Board Hotel
and a restaurant). (fn. 50) Gas street lighting was introduced in 1871 from a gas works in Spareacre
Lane, which was sometimes called Gas Street. (fn. 51)
There were many difficulties over supply and
even in the 1930s only half the village houses
were connected. (fn. 52) Mains electricity became
available in the 1930s, and electric street lighting
was fully installed soon after 1945. (fn. 53) Main
drainage was introduced in 1899, and mains
water supply in 1903; a tall brick water tower at
the junction of Mill Street and Spareacre Lane
was demolished in 1972. (fn. 54)

Although the population rose sharply from
the 1920s there was little outward expansion
until after the Second World War. In the 1920s
a sugar beet factory was established on the
wharf, which continued as an industrial site
thereafter. (fn. 55) Houses built between the wars included council houses of the 1930s at Clover
Place and on Spareacre Lane. (fn. 56) By 1960 many
houses had been built on the edge of the village
notably on the Wytham View estate, along the
Hanborough, Witney, and Old Witney roads,
and on Spareacre Lane. In the 1960s the town
was transformed by building behind houses in
the central streets, particularly between Mill
Street and Witney Road and between High
Street and Newland Street; more houses were
added on the outskirts, between Spareacre Lane
and Hanborough Road, and east of Hanborough
Road. The Bartholomew School was greatly
enlarged and a new primary school built in the
fields north of Newland Street. Small industries
were established on an industrial estate on the
Stanton Harcourt road, on the Station site, and
the Freeland road. New shops were built away
from the centre, particularly on Mill Street. In
1974 Eynsham was designated a conservation
area. (fn. 57) After relatively little growth in the 1970s
rapid expansion followed the completion of the
eastern bypass in 1983.